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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP clearly has a blind spot toward her own behaviors. All 3 kids? She thinks they are spoiled but takes no blame? Describes herself in positive ways and everyone else in negative ways. She’s the problem.

Boomer women didn’t work and did far, far less kid centric things than millennials do today. Their identities were tied to their husband, his work, friends and having kids. As those things have slipped away with time , they seem very empty and are forcing themselves are their adult children.

I’m GenX and see it with our boomer parents and their siblings. Not a one did anything more than a card or call on Mother’s Day for their mothers but boy do they still demand a full on celebration of them on Mother’s Day. As GenX we just ignore it or appease them but I see my millennial younger cousins being much less tolerant of the behavior. [/quote]

You could not be more wrong here. You have your generations mixed up. Boomer women were the first to be in the work force fully,  and they were expected to be in the work force- not a choice thing. We broke glass ceilings in the work force, established work policies for women in while in the work force, expected to take on male dominated STEM field roles with less pay, expected to manage  daycare effortlessly,  fought off misogynistic practices, sexual abuse and workplace harassment,  and as they said over and over in ads and songs: " She brings home the bacon and fries it up in a pan."

Our identities were  not tied to our spouse and  women were frowned upon if they did. Many of us married later, had kids later,  and we were the first generation to normalize  divorce. We were the first to keep our names. We had our own accts.

I am 66. I have friends in the age group going towards 75. Some a little older.  No one was a stay at home wife and mother. All  socioeconomic levels, all income levels.

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It does seem like PP is wrong, but I think these ideas did Boomer women a disservice. I can't get Betty Friedan's statement about SAHMs being parasites out of my head. I don't think being a SAHM is some kind of feminist act but I think most of us recognize now that it is a good choice for some women and it's awful to shame women for making that choice. And the idea that you were expected to bring home the bacon and fry it up in the pan is sad too. My heart really goes out to Boomer women (and Gen X women) who aspired to do it all, which usually required having low expectations for men when it came to childcare and housekeeping. Yes, Gloria Steinem said that women need men like a fish needs a bicycle, but many women chose men anyway because companionship is important too and they just dealt with the household inequities.

So, yes, Boomer women, thank you for the very real progress you made for women, and sorry you had to do it all.

I think what really is going on with the whole "Boomers want a thank you, Millennials want an apology" is that Boomers were treated badly by their parents too, but the idea of just dealing with it because we need to respect our parents just by virtual of them being our parents was still around. Now we have this idea that we aren't obligated to deal with mistreatment just because of family ties. We also tend to want more emotional connection in our relationships, and let's face it: it's hard to have emotional connection when you haven't repaired harm done. I know the analogy is a little strained, but I think about marriages where one partner has had an affair. What I see happen (if the affair came to light but there was no divorce) is one of two things: the couple detaches (or remains detached) emotionally and just tolerate each other as roommates, or they go to therapy, the wayward spouse expresses remorse, the betrayed spouse forgives, and eventually the relationship comes out stronger because of it. The majority of millennials who ask for an apology from their parents want to repair that relationship and have a deeper connection because that is what our society values more right now. And the Boomer parents think "I tolerated this in my parents, why can't you do the same?"

There are a lot of instances where people say "I will never be like my parents!" and then change their minds when they have kids, but I don't think that this will be the case with a refusal to apologize to kids. In fact I don't think I've seen a millennial who has adult children refuse to apologize for parenting mistakes unless they are pretty emotionally stunted.

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